


Asshole Runs in the Family

by MegumitheGreat



Series: Shameless Mitchentine what-ifs, inserts, and fixes [5]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Sympathy, What-If, one shot series, recaps, scene insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 00:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19345807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Unable to get any sleep, Clementine tries to relax before going to sleep.  She finds Mitch, and before she knows it, she starts talking about her past with Lilly.





	Asshole Runs in the Family

**Author's Note:**

> My livestream series is doing wonders for me. I forgot--somehow--all the shit that Lilly goes through AND does in Season 1. While I'd be curious about what all the kids thought about pre-Delta Lilly, maybe if Mitch knew that Lilly was crazy before he wouldn't have tried to fight her head-on. Like if others besides Violet knew (determinant) that Lilly had murdered Carley/Doug, would that have changed anything? Would they have taken more precautions?

_Come back to the Delta with us. We have food and shelter, and we need help defending our home._

Clementine’s eyes shot open a couple nights after she and AJ had returned to Ericson. She couldn’t get what Lilly had said out of her mind. Even after all Mitch and Ruby had done with her in the greenhouse that afternoon she returned, she was still worried about the raiders.

No one knew who Lilly was outside of the fact that she was the leader of the little platoon threatening to infringe on their property. It worried her that no one knew her. Lilly’s gruesome past was why she couldn’t join her.

Clementine swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and she looked over at AJ sleeping soundly on the other side of the room. She smiled at him, but it was a short-lived one. She was anxious. Quietly getting up and leaving the room, she thought a walk around the schoolyard would clear her mind and settle her back down to sleep. Since the kids had rescued her, she had slept much better than ever before. But now, with Lilly coming for them, with the desire and need to protect them even though they hated her…it weighed on her more than all of the burdens and tragedies already on her thin shoulders.

Then she began to realize that the more she saw the school, the more she wanted to defend it, the more she wanted to keep them safe. It was an endless cycle of anxiety and wishing to safeguard the happiness that she had finally found despite not being welcomed anymore. She walked down the halls and through the front doors. The school was her haven. What was once thought to be a castle in the sky was now a home worth fighting for. But could she blame Lilly, then, if that was what the Delta was to her? They weren’t so terribly different.

Clementine walked to the center of the schoolyard where the flagpole’s T-shirt swayed gently in the slight breeze. It was a brisk night not uncommon in West Virginia during the autumn seasons. There was no telling when Lilly would launch the attack. She didn’t want to think about that now.

“Shit, that hurt,” Mitch’s irritated voice yelped. “Ah, fuck. Way to go, Mitch. Why don’t you just cut your whole hand off.”

“Mitch?” Clementine called to him.

“Great.”

Clementine spotted him sitting at the picnic table he always worked at. When she approached him, and using the moonlight as a flashlight, she tried to get a look at what had made him curse. He refused to show her what happened.

“You’re still mad at me, huh…” she sighed. “I thought we made up.”

“We did,” Mitch told her, the irritation still evident in his voice. “I just nicked myself.”

“What are you doing?”

She gleaned that perhaps Mitch was feeling anxious as well. She noticed on the table that he had already started on the bomb that he proposed to use on the raiders. There was a hunting knife and some fuses. A couple of bloodstains.

“You didn’t have to start on the bomb now,” she told him.

“I’ll do what I want,” Mitch snapped back at her. He let out a sigh, knowing that there was no reason to yell at her. Without her, they wouldn’t have ever known to start preparing for the attack. “I just wanted to get a head start. Be useful and lead the preparations, but Violet’s calling the shots, so it’s not like we won’t be prepared.”

Clementine noticed that he wasn’t trying to hide his injury now, or perhaps he let his guard down. Either way, she managed to grab his hand much like how she disarmed him after Marlon’s death. Mitch was startled at first, but he didn’t try to fight back.

“Mitch, you didn’t nick yourself! You really sliced into your hand!” she told him.

“It’s not like it hurts…a lot.”

“Let’s go bandage it up.”

“It’s fine. I just…want to stay out here for a bit. Going inside makes me think about all the preparations we have to do, and then I can’t sleep.”

Clementine understood how he felt, and she was glad about that. She let go of his hand so he could pull his sleeve over it to stop the bleeding. She and Mitch had mended their relationship, and with the darkness around them like a blanket, she only had him in that moment. They were alone. Both were scared for the future. Maybe she could tell him.

“I know the leader,” she told him. Mitch furrowed his brow. “We have history together. And before you say that I’m setting you all up, she…”

Clementine stopped herself. No one chose to be bad. But Lilly chose a lot of things that hurt her. Mitch was suspicious until he saw how troubled she looked. He had forgiven her for what happened to Marlon, and in this moment, he felt something in him that told her how important it was to listen to her.

His hand was still bleeding, the pain trying to force its way to the forefront of his attention. He pushed it back down. Turning to her while she sat next to him, he asked her how she knew Lilly.

“I met Lilly when I was eight.” Clementine ran through all that happened, mentioning that Lilly’s dad Larry was sick when they arrived at the drugstore in Macon. “Larry was an asshole, though. At the time, I was scared, but whenever I think back on it, I just get angry. They were awful to Lee even when he had helped others to survive. He made sure that everyone was safe. He made hard decisions, too.”

Remembering that hurt the most. Clementine stifled her sobs and willed the tears to stay in her eyes. She couldn’t cry now in front of Mitch. She had to keep it up—she was a strong independent girl who had survived on her own with a kid for five years. Clenching her fists on her knees, pursing her lips, and steeling herself; she let out a composing sigh.

“Kenny and Lilly were always fighting. Lee and Larry always fought, too. When we stayed at the motel for those months, it was really hard to ignore it all.”

“I’ll bet,” Mitch sympathized. “Bunch of angry adults.”

“Larry always stood up for Lilly when she had become our group’s leader because, according to him, she was part of the air force that gave her the skills needed to lead. She only took in people when they were useful, and when they stopped being useful, she treated them bad, too. Mark was a good guy, and he had a lot of food. But she did that to him—took him in so she could ration out all the food he had and once we ran out, she didn’t care about what he had to say.”

“What the fuck? God, what a bitch!”

Clementine agreed with him. But that wasn’t the end of the story. She recalled the episode concerning the St. Johns’ Dairy Farm. It was one of the few times that Lee and Lilly agreed with each other. They decided to check the place out, and their group moved to the farm, she was left to her own devices. Lee had been busy with the brothers, and it gave Clementine the chance to investigate herself.

“Damn, you were causing trouble even when you were a little dude!” Mitch laughed before catching himself and stopping from entertaining the thought of child Clementine sneaking and snooping. “Did you find anything?”

Clementine chuckled. “I learned that Larry really liked the mom in charge of the farm. He was flirting with her, but in a weird old man way. Even Lilly was grossed out with it. Back then, Lilly was actually nice. Larry wasn’t by her side all the time, and it honestly seemed like she could breathe a little easier.” She remembered there were many times that she wanted to ask her why she always looked so sad, and even then when she saw her in the forest after nine years, she still looked sad. “Maybe if I had talked with her more, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.”

“A little peacekeeper then,” Mitch sighed. “Not hard to imagine considering you don’t like to cause problems. Huh, a peacekeeping troublemaker.”

“Yeah, well, when you’ve gone through as many groups as I have, you learn when to pick your fights. Lee always tried to keep the peace unless I got hurt.”

“Lee…sounds like a great dad.”

“He wasn’t my dad, but he sure felt like one.”

Mitch didn’t know how to recover from that one, but she appreciated the sentiment. She missed Lee every day. She missed him even more when she talked about him or dreamt about him. She hadn’t met with him in a while in her dreams, and she wondered if he was still watching out for her. Perhaps that was why she wanted to protect them. Each kid at Ericson reminded her of Lee, and maybe if she protected them the way that Lee had protected her, she would finally have a place where she belonged.

“What happened next?” Mitch asked her, now leaning on his arm like a starry-eyed child as he listened to her past regarding Lilly. “You’re here, so something had to have happened at that farm.” His sleeve was dyed brown from the blood that had since stopped trickling down his wrist. Clementine was still concerned about the cut.

“After some time, Lee and Kenny found out that the back of their barn was a slaughter room. The mom called us all for dinner, and Lee found out that…that they were cannibals. We were eating Mark’s legs!”

Mitch sat up straight and leaned in close of suspense. “You didn’t eat it, did you?!” he gasped.

“No, I didn’t! Lee stopped me before I did, but everyone else…they were so hungry that they started eating as soon as they could.”

Mitch seemed to lurch from nausea a little bit at the thought of eating a person’s legs. But he was relieved to know that the tabooed meat never touched Clementine’s lips.

“They threw us all in this giant meat locker. A couple of our friends were taken somewhere, but we were stuck in the locker with Larry and Lilly. They were all just screaming and yelling at them to let us go, and then Larry suddenly collapsed. I think he got so angry that his heart stopped, and Lilly tried really hard to bring him back, but there was no time.” Clementine paused, the macabre memory sending a shiver down her spine.. “Kenny dropped a salt lick on Larry’s head. He crushed his head without any hesitation.”

Mitch’s face grew so horrified and sad. He wasn’t sure whether to put his hand on her back or not. “You…had to see that, right?”

“Yeah. Lilly took it really hard. She was never the same after that. I stayed with her after Lee and Kenny left the meat locker. She just cried. Her dad was an asshole, but that was still her dad.” Clementine remembered that she couldn’t speak to her, but she had tried. She didn’t remember what she said, but whatever it was helped Lilly to move on. They couldn’t stay behind to bury Larry like how the kids at Ericson buried Marlon and Brody. “After we escaped from the farm, Lilly tightened her control. Hunting parties were sent out for food and medicine, but everyone saw that she was losing her grip. Someone was stealing our supplies and giving it to bandits, and finally when shit hit the fan, we were run out of our home. Kenny managed to get an old RV working, and we just ran.”

Mitch raised an eyebrow. He felt bad for Clementine that all this happened when she was only eight. Back then, he was just blowing up his garage and fighting with his neighbors. He was sent to the school where he began to take care of Willy. He was safe. She was trapped in a moving vehicle with a psychotic time bomb.

“Lilly accused a friend and a new member of our group of stealing the supplies. Lee tried to get her to calm down. Eventually, we had to stop. She kept blaming everybody for what happened. Carley, our friend, finally got tired of her and told her to stop. Maybe she said too much because Lilly shot her in the head without a second thought.”

Above everything else, that scared Mitch the most. Lilly had shot someone in cold blood out of rage and paranoia. And, once again, Clementine had seen it up close and personal. He was glad that she was there now. He knew what they were up against.

“I’m so sorry,” Mitch quickly said. Clementine questioned him. “I voted to kick you out after what happened with Marlon. And Violet even said that the leader had her boot on your neck. You knew her. You saw what she did, and she could have done that to you if you had been out there for just a second longer.”

“I was only a little girl then,” Clementine added. “I wasn’t a threat to her, but now I am. And she’s coming to the school to catch all of you.” The look in her eyes were desperate and tired yet willing to risk it all for them. “I know what Lilly is capable of. She’s calculating. She’s cold. I promise you, Mitch, that I will not let her do anything to you.”

Mitch’s eyes were wide with surprise. Clementine was a badass, and he truly admired that in her. He grabbed her hand, that look he saw in her reflecting on his face. “I’m going to help you any way I can,” he told her. “I’m not about to let that bitch do that again. I will do what it takes to protect my family.”

Clementine glanced down at his hand holding hers tightly. Realizing that he had touched her, Mitch pulled himself back. He cleared his throat before apologizing. She hadn’t minded it, though. She had told Violet a little of what she remembered of Lilly from back then. Telling Mitch, however, was different. Violet had been shocked and scared, somewhat struggling to lead the other kids while swallowing the stress and hardship. Clementine appreciated that she tried her hardest to get the others to let her back in. And even though Mitch was against her coming back, she found something like solace in telling him all that had happened. There was something about telling him her past that made her feel better. Perhaps it was the glint in his eyes that accentuated how much he was willing to fight or die trying. Perhaps it was the way he watched her while listening—she didn’t really know. She was just grateful for him. He didn’t seem like a smart boy most of the time what with everyone belittling him. In that moment outside of making bombs or justifying burning walkers, however, he had been listening and processing the story.

“Clem, we’ve got to make sure we kill them,” Mitch said, breaking into her thoughts. “I’m serious. If Lilly did all that back then, I don’t want to even imagine what she could do now to Willy or Tenn…or AJ.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep working with Violet. As long as we keep thinking one step ahead, we’ll make it.”

He turned his head from her. “Yeah,” he said. He exhaled after he had held his breath for a second. “Do you feel sorry for her?” Clementine was taken aback by the question and even more by the sincerity in his voice. “I kind of do. Sounds like she had it rough, especially with that asshole of a dad. Like…even though I was sent here to this school, I’d still be sad if my folks turned up dead.”

Clementine wasn’t sure what to think. Lilly was high-strung and an asshole herself, but could it have been because of Larry? She didn’t know their life prior to the apocalypse. She only knew how hurt she was when Kenny murdered him. She only knew how scared she was when someone was stealing their supplies.

“Do you think I should feel sorry?” she asked him.

“I don’t know. If asshole runs in the family, what can you do?”

Clementine sighed. It was late, and they needed to get up early enough to help fortify the school. She got up from the picnic table. “I didn’t think you’d be the sensitive type,” she told him with her back turned.

“Sometimes I get time to think. This is one of those times. Don’t get me wrong, though. Even if she went through shit, she’s still dangerous. A scared person is a dangerous person. We all know that. We saw what happened with Brody and Marlon”

“You’re right. If you saw her face, you’d think she was afraid, too.”

Mitch ran his hand through his hair. All these thoughts were surfacing now—how were they going to fight back if they started to humanize the monsters coming for them? He asked her if she was going inside. When she said she was, he paused for a moment.

“I’ll walk you to your room,” he told her. He left the table and the materials for his bomb.

Clementine raised an eyebrow at him. Since telling him about Lilly, he seemed tense himself. She didn’t ask him until they got to her dorm room where he revealed that he just couldn’t let go of the notion that they were going up against someone that had no qualms about killing people. He stood before Clementine, her diminutive form enshrouded by his shadow cast by the little bit of moonlight peeking though the windows.

“Can I just…?” he almost whispered.

“Mitch?” Clementine asked him suspiciously.

He placed his hands on her shoulders. His eyes were solemn and colored with worry. He slowly pulled her in for a hug, and as she carefully wrapped him in an uncertain embrace, she found him trembling. Then he quickly pushed her away.

“Forget that happened. Good night,” he curtly said. He left her alone in front of her door. Clementine wondered if maybe it was right to tell him. She would keep what happened a secret, but perhaps she didn’t humanize Lilly. It was very possible that she revealed that she was a devil waiting to be let loose. Inside Lilly was an immeasurable rage against her life, and now they were the perfect targets.

“This is better,” Clementine concluded with herself. “Every warning can only make us more ready.”

**Author's Note:**

> A bit more depressing and tame than the other parts, but this was more of a whimsy.
> 
> I've also been playing around with the idea of having different ideas branch within each one shot because I have another idea concerning if Mitch ended up getting kidnapped. So while it would be a new fic, I'd add it as a chapter for organization to In the Pines. Let me know if that's something you'd like to see!


End file.
